Abstract:
This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of dearth period feeding of honeybee colonies with bee collected pollen on brood development and yield of local honeybees at selected icipe project sites: The case of Dangla district, Awi Zone, Ethiopia. Bee pollen was collected from strong colonies in Ziguda Kebele youth beekeepers apiary site and a total of 8kg of bee collected pollen was collected and stored for feeding. Major pollen plants were identified based on pollen analysis and cross checked with pollen atlas. This result shows honeybees collected pollen from 22 plant family; those Fabaceae, Asteraceae and Rosaceae were the frequently visited plants; Asteraceae being dominant contributing 54% of the bee pollen collected. Fifteen honeybee colonies with single chamber frame hives were selected and assigned in to three groups (pollen cake supplemented, sugar syrup supplemented and control colonies) each with 5 colonies for feeding experiment during the dearth. Supplemental feeding was done from 1st April to 15th May 2020. The pollen supplemented colonies were given 175gm of bee collected pollen in the form of soft cake and sugar supplemented colonies were supplemented with 0.5L of concentrated sugar syrup. Bee pollen was totally consumed during the first three weeks where its consumption was lowered to 50% during the last week of the experimental period. Performance data were recorded in 21days interval. Data for adult population, sealed and unsealed brood development, drone brood development, dearth period pollen and nectar stored and honey production were collected and analyzed. Accordingly, colonies supplemented with bee collected pollen had a better performance over those assigned to the sugar syrup and control treatments. There was a significant difference (p<0.05) in all analyzed performance data except pollen store. Specifically, number of frames covered with adult bee population was 5.7 ± 0.44 frames for pollen fed colonies while those fed with sugar syrup and control colonies demonstrated only 3.3 ± 0.44 and 2.37 ± 1.1 frames with bees, respectively. Similarly, bee pollen supplemented colonies produced higher open brood 323.2 ± 62cm2 over sugar syrup supplemented (76 ± 28 cm2) and control colonies (72±16 cm2). Moreover, the number of empty combs, at the end of the experiment, from colonies fed with pollen supplement showed none when compared with those fed with sugar syrup (1.2 ±1) and the control group (1.5 ±0.57). Colonies supplemented with bee collected pollen produced significantly higher volume of honey (16.6± 3.6 kg) than those supplemented with sugar syrup and control colonies which produced 10.9 ± 3.5 and 7.8 ± 2.9 kg of honey, respectively. Our result has indicated that honeybee colony supplemental feeding with bee collected pollen during the dearth period helps to get more profit (93.5% net income increase) during the main honey flow season than those colonies fed with sugar syrup (36.9% increase) when compared with the control colonies (unfed colonies). Thus, the results of the experiment have demonstrated that dry period supplementation of the honey bee colonies with own collected surplus pollen during the main blooming period benefits both the colonies and the beekeepers.